LOST PRAYER
A prayer well known and repeated,
and repeated, the mind focused on the words,
on the words, becomes an internal ceremony,
with little room, and then no room
for another thought; sooner or later
comes the moment when the focus is lost,
the words are lost, when the internal chant
comes up empty, comes to silence;
better silence than the meaning lost.
But when the words are lost,
across that vacant moment,
an image will follow, of Divinity,
of a sacred place, of Benevolence
accepting the devotion of a
weary humanity, prone to loss
of focus and of meaning, to the
wavering use of words, tending to
obscure and not to illuminate.
The silence becomes a light,
the silence turns to light,
that the loss might be redeemed;
picture without words, the figure
surprised in the clearing, become
as a candle of sunlight, by the breath
of contemplation turned to action,
so the loss of words may come to nothing.
– This poem appears in the July 10 print issue of NR.